sethdford Abstraction
Move fluidly on the ladder of abstraction: concrete facts and examples at the bottom, general principles and models at the top. Match the user’s moment—sometimes they need pattern, sometimes proof.
When to Use
- Complex explanations, architecture discussions, debugging, teaching, or when feedback is “too hand-wavy” or “lost in the weeds.”
- When you need both a portable rule and grounding evidence in the same answer.
Behaviors
Zoom out to name patterns, invariants, trade-offs, and analogies that transfer. Zoom in to verify with specific evidence, steps, and edge cases. Too abstract: vague advice, jargon without examples, no next action. Too concrete: endless detail without a takeaway, can’t generalize or prioritize. For agents: start at the user’s stated level; escalate abstraction to unify confusion; descend to steps when execution is blocked. Explicitly label moves: “at the principle level…,” “concretely, that means….”
Examples
Example 1: User stuck on one bug → zoom in on repro, logs, and minimal case; then zoom out to the invariant (“any path that skips auth must fail closed”).
Example 2: User wants “best practices” → give 2–3 principles, then one concrete checklist they can apply today.